My Call to Ministry

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1 Thessalonians 2:8, Argentina, calling, Christ, commitment, Courtney Rose, disciple, discipleship, EDGE Corps, FL, full-time, funded, goal, God, God's plan, graduation, heart change, Jacksonville, leading, Ministry, my story, plans, Prayer, summer, Summer Training Program, support, support raising, The Navigators, UNK

Many of you may already know my story of God’s calling. Or maybe you have heard only pieces of it. I’d like to be able to share with you a clearer picture of what God has done in my life in recent years to call me to full-time ministry for the next 2 years. However, I understand that may be difficult to do in a blog. Therefore, if you have any questions about my story or would like to hear it in more detail, I would love to share more with you in person! (Just reply below!)

My story begins freshman year. I may have been returning to a town that I grew up in for 9 years of my life, but to me it was a fresh start. I was excited to develop my faith on my own and get involved in a church away from my family. My intentions were good, but my follow through was lacking. As soon as I began getting involved in my sorority and other campus organizations, I quickly lost focus. I began placing my school activities, homework, and sleep above my relationship with God or fellowship with other believers.

Fast forward to fall semester junior year. All of those decisions of misplaced priorities finally caught up to me. I had never been further away from God. I knew that I had been living apart from Him, and that the fruit in my life (or lack thereof) was evidence of it. God convicted me of the sin in my life, and I repented and returned to Him. I recognized the great need I had in my life for His grace and forgiveness, and I responded by recommitting my life to Christ.

It was at this turning point in my life that my path crossed with The Navigators. God was preparing the way for this because He had placed a girl by the name of Caitlin in one of my English classes during that fall semester. We became good friends through that class, and what-do-ya-know she was a part of Navs! So when I was looking for genuine Christian fellowship after recommitting my life, I knew that I could just follow her to a Nav Night (the large group worship night). After that initial connection, I quickly became involved with a Bible study. I was so encouraged that the other girls in the study were also earnestly seeking God and serious about learning how to study the Bible. I knew that was where God wanted me at that time.

For the sake of condensing my story, the quick version of the next two years is this:

– I planned on studying abroad in Spain during Summer 2012

– God sent me to the Summer Training Program in Florida.

– I planned on studying abroad in Costa Rica during Summer 2013

– God sent me to Argentina.

– I had planned my whole life to become a teacher, and was consistent about becoming a Spanish and English teacher since freshman year of high school

– God opens my heart to consider and pray about a different future.

To help you understand how God began to change my heart about the future, I want to share with you about a special relationship. During the fall semester 2012, I began being discipled by my friend Machelle, a Navigator staff member. She didn’t just share biblical principles over a cup of coffee; she welcomed me into her life and gave me a godly example to follow. As we cooked meals, picked up her kids from activities, and ran errands together, Machelle showed me how to do life and ministry as a follower of Christ. By walking alongside me, Machelle built a strong relationship of trust that allowed her to speak into my life and help me grow in my walk with God.

I began desiring to be able to do for girls what Machelle did for me: share my life so that I can share Christ! I recognized that God could have me do this same sort of thing in the workplace after graduation, but I began to be more open to the idea that he could be calling me to give my life away on campus through full-time ministry.

Other events on my timeline as I began considering what God would have me do after graduation include:

– Being asked to explain to a visitor about the needs of The Navigators at UNK, and beginning to cry as I realized that the need was staff women to invest in students. I was crying because I recognized my desire to be the one to invest in those women. (March 2013)

– Being asked by Machelle to begin praying about full-time ministry. (April 2013)

– Sitting in a coffee house and contemplating skipping my English class because I would much rather be studying the Bible or having a spiritual conversation with a friend. I realized that campus ministry could be very similar to what I had been doing that semester (leading a Bible study, discipling girls, raising support for a missions trip) but without the homework or classes. (April 2013)

– Being asked by my campus directors to pray about joining EDGE Corps at UNK. (May 2013)

– God used the summer in Argentina to challenge me in my faith and trust in Him. I also feel that He used the trip to close the door on overseas missions in the immediate future (something else that I had been praying about). (June-July 2013)

– I received a very clear answer during a listening prayer in Argentina that I should be pursuing campus ministry. (July 2013)

– Student teaching taught me that I could teach. That if God called me to it, that I could do a great job in the field of education. However, He also gave me peace about not pursuing a job in education immediately out of college. I felt encouraged to take these next two years and commit them to God. (Fall 2013)

Basically, I just want to give you a picture of the way I have seen God leading me to this decision of full-time ministry. It was not a rash decision as you can see. Nor was it crystal clear or written in the sky. But it was something that God impressed upon my heart over the course of a couple of years (and probably even since childhood if we are really being honest about the way God works).

The verse that has encouraged me since the very beginning of my time with The Navigators, and all the more now that I’ve committed the next two years of my life to God’s ministry at UNK, is 1 Thessalonians 2:8.

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

I want that desire to grow in my heart for the women I will have the opportunity to invest in at UNK over the next two years. They are already very dear to me, but I want to be able to share myself with them the way I share with them the gospel of God. I want to give my life away for the glory of God.

Please partner with me in prayer as I pursue this path that God has designed for me. I am crazy excited to be able to stay at UNK and work with the girls I’m already investing in as well as the chance to meet new students and build new relationships while sharing the love of Christ.

Right now my biggest concern is being funded for next year. I am currently meeting with friends and family to invite them to partner with me in ministry through prayer and financial support. If you are interested in meeting with me and hearing more about what I will be doing with The Navigators, I would love the chance to share! (Please reply below or email me at nelsen.cr@gmail.com).

My goal is to be fully funded by May 1st in order to spend this summer in Jacksonville, FL as team leader and staff member at the Summer Training Program. (The same program that I went through 2 summers ago!) I am currently at 50%, so please pray that the remaining 50% would come through during the next 4 weeks as I continue to ask for support.

Again, thank you so much for taking an interest in what God has been doing in my life. I appreciate your prayers and support.

God bless,

~Courtney Rose~

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2 Corinthians 9:7, Christ, Courtney Rose, EDGE Corps, Family, full-time ministry, God, JAX, JAX-STP, ministry partner, Prayer, Romans 8:32, summer, The Navigators, Travel, UNK Navs

As I introduced to you all back in November, there are big changes occurring in my life. Since I last blogged, I have officially interviewed and  been accepted for EDGE Corps with The Navigators at the University of Nebraska – Kearney, and I have begun training and raising support. The EDGE Corps is a 1-2 year opportunity to be trained in ministry while reaching out with the love of Christ to college students who are spiritually hungry.

I am currently in the middle of raising ministry support for this first year of EDGE. Those of you who are familiar with The Navigators are already aware that all EDGE Corps staff are supported entirely by gifts from friends, family and local churches. In order to serve on campus, I am trusting God with my first ministry assignment, which is to put together a team of partners who will give financially from $50-$250 per month and a few who can give more. This means that I am reaching out to as many people as I can to meet with them and share what God has been doing in my life and what this next step is all about.

If you read back through my blog posts the past couple years, it will be evident that God has been leading me in the direction of full-time ministry for awhile. Because He has called me to this, I am confident that He will provide this team of supporters for me.

Romans 8:32 – He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

I am trusting God in this. I feel strongly that God will call people to support me and that through their support He will provide. However, I do not know who those special people will be. Therefore, I am diligently meeting with friends and family during this semester to ask them this very important question:

Will you prayerfully consider joining my team?

I do not want people to rush into a decision to support me or to have not been prompted by God to do so. I do not want people to feel obligated to support me or pressured to support me or to do it begrudgingly.

2 Corinthians 9:7 – Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

I want a team of partners to give out of the overflow of their hearts. I also desire a team to come alongside me in prayer. It is so vital to know that those who are supporting me are also interceding for me at the throne of grace. There is a spiritual battle going on all around us, and I have never been more aware of that before now.

I also use the word partner because that is exactly what I want this to be: a partnership. The ministry that I will be doing on campus could not be completed without the support of individuals. However, I also believe the partnership works the other direction as well. I want to be praying for those who support me. It is just as vital for them to receive prayer because they are the ones doing ministry in the workplace or in their homes by being a light for Christ. Their ministry is just as valued by God as my ministry among college students.

A part of me feels like I may have just rambled a bit through all of that information, but I pray that some of it makes sense to you. I pray that you would understand with more clarity where I am coming from and what I am praying for in a ministry support team.

I want to ask you the same question that I’ve asked others:

Would you prayerfully consider joining my team?

I am still in need of prayer and financial support, and I would love for you to prayerfully consider joining me. I have currently raised 44% of my budget for next year, and my goal is to be at 100% by May 1st in order to spend 2 months of this summer as a team leader and staff member at the JAX – Summer Training Program in Jacksonville, FL.

If you have any questions or would like to meet with me to discuss what I will be doing in more detail, I would love to make arrangements to speak with you. (I am willing to travel!) Please comment below, or send me an email at nelsen.cr@gmail.com. Or if you have already prayerfully considered joining my team and feel as though God is leading you to do so, you can follow this link to my staff site to donate directly to my ministry.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, to learn how God has been leading me, and to pray about how God may be leading you to support me.

‘Til all have heard,

Courtney Rose

P.S. I plan on continuing to introduce you to what this ministry is all about through additional blog entries, but if you are interested in receiving a monthly newsletter from me during my time on EDGE Corps, follow this link to sign up!

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Argentina, Christ, Courtney Rose, Dependence, Dependency on God, EDGE Corps, God, Grace Elizabeth's, Holy Spirit, Isaiah 55:11, Navigators, NavMissions, Prayer, Rest in God, Romans 8:26, Spanish, summer, summer missions, Travel

You may be wondering: What ever happened to Courtney? Did she even return from Argentina?

Well, I definitely did, and I apologize for not updating you all sooner! To be honest, I tried writing this update shortly after returning, but I couldn’t find quite the right words to express what I experienced. Then, my semester of student teaching began, and I never got around to finishing.

So here I am to give you an update!

As an overview for those who are unfamiliar with what I was doing in Argentina, I went for two months this summer as part of a team of 10 Midwesterners sent by NavMissions. To put it as concisely as possible, we essentially came alongside the existing Navigator ministry, supporting the staff, building relationships with students, and serving the community around us. I could tell you hundreds of stories about the people we met, cultural differences and similarities, and the crazy things that our team said or did, but I’ll limit myself to sharing one story about the people we met and one story about what I learned.

Ismael and Elena with our team

At least one day a week, our team would serve at a children’s home. We played with the kids, served them merienda, and built relationships with them. While serving there, our team was blessed to meet Ismael and Elena, the caretakers. Ismael shared with us how he was actually one of the first children to grow up at the home when it originally opened. Last year, God called him and his wife to leave their own family and jobs in order to return to the children’s home to serve full-time. Even though they’ve been called, they haven’t been met with open arms. There is a lot of spiritual darkness surrounding the home and the leadership. It was emotionally moving to hear Ismael share through his own tears how much he and his wife desire to love the children and share Christ with them, but how they are being met by spiritual opposition. They’d reached a point before we came where they began questioning whether God still wanted them to serve there. Though we could not answer their questions, we were able to encourage them through our words and actions as well as pray over them. Their obedience and faithfulness in following God’s guidance in their lives despite hardship has been eye opening.

On a different front, I was extremely challenged spiritually by my time in Argentina. My biggest struggle was the spiritual warfare I experienced every time our team would go to campus to try and meet students. We would get on the bus to head to campus and my mood would plummet, a cloud would settle on my shoulders, and I felt I had no way of combatting it. This haze of confusion led me to feel like the least useful member of the team. It was through many one-on-ones with my team leader Emily that we began to uncover what was happening to me and why lies kept popping up. It was through the extreme circumstances of being stripped away from everything I knew and being placed in a foreign country that allowed me to confront parts of my life and begin to see how God’s redeeming grace covers all. Despite my faults and inadequacies, God can use me for His purposes to further the gospel. I find confidence in Isaiah 55:11:

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

My friend Paula and me on our last day in Argentina.

No matter how much I screwed up my Spanish, God’s word was going to accomplish the purpose that he designed for it. So though the ups and downs, I was learning to rest in God. So much was out of my control – the culture, the language, the transportation, the conversations – everything. Therefore, I had to trust God with everything that was happening – the good moments, the moments of frustration and confusion, the moments of revelation, the moments of sorrow, of worry, of pain, the moments of excitement and anticipation, and of compassion – they were all moments given to me by God. He used each and every one of those moments to shape my heart and life. Was it easy? Was it pleasant? No. At times it was down right awful and disheartening, but God brought me through those moments to show me His greater picture and glory. In those times of great confusion and brokenness, I had no words to express what I was feeling, but the words of Romans 8:26 would come to mind:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

When I was at a loss, the Holy Spirit was interceding for me. I think that I struggled so much this summer because I had a lot to grow in. I needed those challenges and worries to show me where my dependence is or should be. The only thing I can count on is God and His love for me that he sent his Son to die on the cross for my sins. He is not only good, but He is sovereign and worthy of my trust. He has a plan for me, and it is good. Is that plan what I think is good, easy and best for me? Not all the time, but it is good because it is from God. Even in those moments of torment, I knew that truth about God.

Since returning from Argentina, I’ve continued to grow in my dependence on God. My student teaching has recently concluded, graduation is coming up in December, and I’m looking to God’s future plans for my life. It’s pretty crazy to think that I’ve made it this far, and I’m now searching for what’s next. It’s also crazy because I’m confident right now that God’s immediate plan for me doesn’t include teaching.

Say what?

Yeah, even though my student teaching has been a positive experience and I definitely could see myself teaching in the future, I don’t feel God is calling me to serve in that way at this time. God has used the last 2 ½ years to lead me toward what I believe His plan for me is right now: campus ministry! I’ve recently applied for the EDGE Corps with the Navigators. The EDGE Corps is a 1-2 year opportunity to be trained in ministry while reaching out with the love of Christ to college students who are spiritually hungry. I still have to go through an interview process, but if I am accepted into the program, I will receive training in January before being sent out to raise ministry support. If all goes well, I will be on a college campus (hopefully UNK) by August. I would appreciate your prayers as these plans unfold and I adjust to “life after college.”

Thank you all again for your prayers and support during my time in Argentina. I look forward to what this next year holds and can’t wait to share it with you!

Dependent on God,

~Courtney Rose~

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